Reflections on Peter Fallon's visit to Intro to Lit class

Peter Fallon's visit to English 210 was both a calming and stirring experience for me. He spoke of the inspiration for a poem in one of his recent books, coming from a struggle to grasp the nature and question of why we forget many things, but some things -  very few, he said, remain with us - even haunt us.
He gave the example of some of the images in one of his poems, one of which was a tree that grew from a tiny rock at the edge of a lake. He talked about the concept of 'will' as the theme in the poem, with the word implying a notion of the desire to cling to life as incarnated by the tree, and the concept of a legal document one leaves to someone after they die. This could be a metaphor in itself, and one might wonder if his mention of this concept would imply a desire for the poem or book of poems to be left for an individual to experience and glean after the poet has passed on.

Following Fallon's talk, he answered several questions and spoke on his experience as a young man starting a printing press. Fallon also answered the question of which of his poems was hardest to write, responding with his realization after writing poems for many years that he has had to constantly reinvent both his poems and the concept of what it means to be a poet.  
He said in response to a question on the nature of lyric poetry, that not everything has to be autobiographical - and that while life experiences are at the root of his poetry, and all poetry for that matter, the shaping of language and composing a poem out of a specific experience takes patience, diligence, and commitment.
He reiterated several times that while beginning something is easy, starting over is the difficult part.
Fallon also spoke about the nature of poetry as containing a certain mystery - the mystery of meaning. He implied that the most important element of writing poems for him has been the question of whether or not he 'trusts' the poem. "If I trust the poem, that is all that matters to me" he said.
Fallon talked about the combination of the mystery element with a very ordinary routine and comfort in the writing of poems.
These components of poetry make a great deal of sense to me.
Poetry is where the poet can truly be his or her self, to filter and absorb an experience through the shaping of language, to find a certain balance. It is also where the reader or listeners are able to connect with the poem to find a sense of engagement, in the arena of the benign.